Graphic Design & Handmade Books

I can’t believe it’s been almost three weeks since my last post! Things have gotten crazy busy, but in a good way. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying all of my new classes this semester; it’s just that I never considered what life would be like teaching three new classes at once. In a word, it’s been a whirlwind.

I’d show pictures of my dining room, which looks like it’s been hit by a whirlwind for sure, but… I’m sure you’d rather see photos of all the cool projects I’ve been up to instead.

If you haven’t seen the stop motion animation projects from my 6-10 year-olds class, check out my Vimeo page for a peek. The stories are pretty well constructed for kids of that age, and we all had so much fun with the projects. I was so proud of their efforts!

Stop motion animation is over with for now, but it looks like we’ll be running that class again in the fall, along with another class for 10-14s and one for adults, too. It’s going to be super cool; I can’t wait!

This little book is a project for my high school students, and I’m working on something big to make it really special. They all seemed to dig my junk journal last week, with some hoping they were going to be making one just like it.

To me it’s a kind of living art – a daily expression of various arts, crafts, and an attempt at design – through a variety of tiny projects that soothe my nerves and help organize my thoughts at the same time. It’s replaced my daily mandala as an effective and zen approach to maintaining a sense of organized beauty in the face of so much newness all at once.

Of course my class did not make the junk journal, though. It’s far too much to bite off in one go. Instead, we started with a graphic design lesson, which is part of the something big I mentioned above. In a week or two, we’ll be making this steampunk inventor’s log book.